Remember this?

• It has been one year. How time flies. Cupcake tower for my sister's wedding last year. My idea, my design - I paid someone to bake those. It was a huge affair - 1500 guests at that wedding. I dare not bake them myself! Ha!

• Now this, this one is all mine. LOL. If you could see the amount of dirty dishes I had to wash! What do you think? I hope this one will hold it's shape in the 2hr hour drive from our house to my parents' place. 
• Messy? Of course, I'm not a pro. Delicious? I hope. Made with lots of love? Beyond a shadow of doubt. Just one more of my attempt to be fearless in the kitchen. 
• One LilyBee layout to share with you today :)

• I adore that Flower Pot paper from their Buttercup line. And I love how clean looking this layout is. That way, even though my photo is small, you can spot it the first time you look at the layout, especially when I added that black frame. 
• 33. It has been almost 6 months since I turned 33 and I must say it's pretty dang awesome. :)
• I'm need to get ready as we're leaving soon, but before that - btsoi - Congrats! You're the winner for my Etsy shop giveaway! Please email me my dear and I'll mail out your tags as soon as possible!

It's official

If you're here for the giveaway, scroll down and leave your comment here. *closed*

• I'm OLD. ha! I used to be able to stay up all night, and still go strong the next day and the day after  AND the day after that. Not anymore. *sad face* :D
• Last weekend, we drove up 250km to Melaka with some friends - more like brothers, actually, to meet another friend - another one who is more like a brother, then we all hopped into his car and he drove us all to Sepang F1 Circuit for a night marathon. *am I confusing you already?*
• Bad news - our car air-con unit broke down just before the trip. Imagine road tripping in the 40℃/104℉ without air-con. 
• Good news - no tantrum. A little bit of complaining, especially from me. What do you expect? I was wearing my jeans *bad choice* and sweating like a pig at places you don't even wanna think about. That, and my chocolate melted before I got the chance to eat them.
• Good news - our hotel was gorgeous (Arenaa De Luxe Hotel)! Lemme show you! The staggered canvas is my absolute favorite!

• Good news - the car we took from Melaka to Sepang has air-con!! Hurrah!! Thank you William for driving us and saving my ass from melting. LOL. One mirror shot before we leave. . . by this time, the kids were a little bit cranky and I don't blame them. Ha!

• Two hours later, we reached Sepang and were greeted with one of the most amazing sunset. *sigh* I can't get enough sunsets, ever! Just look at that!

• And then off he go.  I don't quite like that I can't go down to their level and had to shoot from above. But I must admit, it's something different, a larger view and not all bad anyway. *sigh* Look at that, as if running a marathon is not hard enough, they're doing it in the dark. Runners were provided with headlights, but he can't stand having anything on his head so he threw his back at us and ran without it.

• Then while waiting, we bought burgers and chicken nuggets and drinks from the single vendor available there. And we waited. . and waited, and tried our best entertaining the kids. LOL. 
• Good news - he came back slightly under 4 hours. Not his personal best, but hey, I'll take it. 

• I love that he's looking at our direction while 10 feet away from the finish line. :) ♥

• Good news - he was 6th to finish in the Men Junior Veteran category. You bet that tag is going into my Project Life album.
• Bad news - we were made to wait for more than an hour, without being told that the prizes were only for the top 5 runners. He was okay with it, I was not. Ha! And no one came to tell us that we can go so we were left waiting until I made Mr.Husband go and ask someone, anyone.
• Good news - I have my brothers and my family with me while waiting. Time spent with them is always good news. Even if it was at 1am. Even if it was at 4am when we stopped for supper/breakfast before going back to our hotel to sleep!
• The next day - or later that day - whichever way you look at it, was spent shopping, eating, eating and eating and that suits me so well. Better than running. :)) It was a great trip. So glad I have the people I have.
• This is a novel, no? If you're still here.. thank you!! You're a hero for reading it all! LOL. I'll see you soon!!

xoxo

Introducing PaperPlay *closed*

• After almost a year thinking about it, I finally have enough courage to start my own etsy shop. :) Introducing Sew PaperPlay.
• This is something small and something new for me. One thing I'm sure of, every item will be made with lots and I really mean of lots of love :) You already know how passionate I am about handstitching on paper.
• Now is the time to celebrate, if nothing else, my courage to try something new!

• I'm giving away a set of three handstitched tags in the photo above. Just leave me a comment here telling me which of the 12 items in my shop do you like most? 
• I know there is not a lot in there, like I said, this is something small, but I sure hope you will find something you like! :)

I'll see you soon!

Sometimes

• Sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right and still you feel like you failed. ~Aaron Hotchner *Criminal Minds*
• Ain't that the truth? *sigh*
• Just something I thought I'd share. That quote, his voice, has been inside my head quite often nowadays. Shows how much a tv junkie I am, eh? :)
• I'm not feeling very witty lately, thus the lack of posts. If there is one thing I do not want, is for this blog to turn into one with no 'heart and soul' or so to speak. :) At the same time, I don't want to bore you with my whining. *grins*
• But today, today I have some project life updates to share with you!

• Lots of grid journaling cards. Can I just say how glad I am that I went with just the grid cards and not any of the themed core kit? VERY! I'm very unpredictable when I scrap and I want my album to reflect that. Not to mention it's so much fun playing with every little 3x4 piece of card. :)

• Super old bird stamp from October Afternoon, back when they had their Story Of My Own kit club :) Stamped on white cs, then spread over two journaling cards and snipped into two.
• I think I'm gonna continue doing the quote card for every movie we watch. Just something to remember. I love quotes as you may already know. Still tucking in tickets underneath the movie poster pic.

• Love love love love that Smash tape. You're gonna be seeing them on a LOT of things.. i feel like sticking some onto everything in this house. haha! The notebook ATC next to my picture is from ChicTags, yes, I lost the ability to scrap without reaching out for at least one of anything/something from ChicTags.
• 'Today' stamp from Cocoa Daisy. That yellow is yummy!

• Studio Calico bicycle and adventure stamp. Grey chevron and orange arrow from their scrap pads as well. More washi, more stickers, more fun :)
• Btw - that 'father' sticker is bugging me. I might rip it off and handwrite 'daddy' instead. Ha! :)
• Rainy saturday over here, perfect weather for napping. What say you? LOL.
• Actually, I wanted to make some caramel sauce - so I can make some homemade caramel syrup for my coffee. I'm just lazy, and the sink is finally empty. If I make something, there will be dirty dishes again and yeah, I'm lazy. That's it. So I think I'm gonna nap instead and let the sink be empty. Caramel can wait. :)

xoxo

Ready for my close ups

• not me, obviously. I just got home from the morning school run, the only thing on my face is some sunblock. I think you will faint if you see me now. Ha!
• I need to thank you all for the sweet emails, text and messages since my last post. I'm okay, I hope. We're still at the wait and see stage. I really hope there will be no story to tell - health wise. I really hope it was just a scare. *fingers crossed*
• And now, close ups for my layouts for Pretty Paper Studio. The blog hop is still on, scroll down and leave a comment in my previous post if you're interested! :)

• Stitched sun rays + my beautiful baby girls. Everything from the kit, except for that little bit of twine. I love not using the frame transparency as a frame. YKWIM? lol.

• I got several questions on how I get that butterfly. It's not hard, I promise. I cut a huge butterfly with my Silhouette *you can totally do this with your craft knife, I'm just lazy and am no good with craft knife and i didn't want a trip to the ER, really, I'm that clumsy*. Then I used the negative portion of the butterfly as a mask, taped it on that lovely teal cardstock with some washi *because I want to take it off later and washi is great for that*, and stamped the word love all over with teal ink before I misted it lightly with White Mister Huey. Let it dry, and take off the butterfly mask and that's it. Love the look btw, will be doing this again and again and again.
• Follow Your Heart was cut from the branding strip at the bottom of the transparency sheet.

• Yes, I stitched every little circle. Yes, it's tedious and lots of work. Yes, I love it because it calms me down. I traced the circles with The Crafters Workshop stencil by Julie Balzer.
• Three layouts - all with that kraft tag by Maya Road. I have since gone out and bought myself three packs of the kraft tags for fear of running out. This is not something I do, really. I don't buy stuff in multiples because I believe better things will come along but this one is an exception! I love love love warmer kraft like the tags and also those JilliBean's folder!! Can't get enough of them.

Pretty Paper Studio Blog Hop

If you're here for the blog hop from Shruti's blog, Welcome!! If you're not, stay a while anyway! I have some projects to share today :)

PPS (Pretty Paper Studio) is a monthly scrapbooking + cardmaking kit club based in UAE. Not only that, they will have other papercraft supplies in their shop. Their kits will be available for purchase at subscriber price (AED205) until April 15th.

I'm honored to be guest designing for their scrapbooking kit this month. On to my projects now! :)

Leave a comment here for a chance to win their Project Kit - Spring Break! Then hop on over to Tejal's blog!

Winner will be announced on 18th April on the PPS blog :)

Thank you for hopping with me! :) Come back soon!

Happy Today

• Inspired by this particular pin :

Source: lollipops-and-roses.blogspot.com via Sasha on Pinterest

• I created this layout for Crate Paper. If you're interested in a handstitching tutorial, they're available at Crate Paper blog.

• I might need to make a trip to the Doctor soon, but you guys, you guys be happy today. Be happy and acknowledge the happiness.
• I'll see you soon. I love you all.

Don't grow away

• First, I must thank you all for the love on my last post. I'm doing much better now, reducing my coffee intake and sleeping good. Panic attack, who'd have thought?
• Sleepless nights - be gone. Thank you and may I never see you again. :)

• My first layout for Lily Bee.
• My first-born. *sigh*
• She is not the model daughter because obviously I'm not the model mother. She's hard, I'm harder. When I talk about her and I laugh, you don't really know whether I'm really laughing or I'm silently weeping inside. That's just the way I am.
• She's growing too fast for my liking. Too damn fast.

• I adore Lily Bee's Handmade line, and I adore that lace background. What could be better than using them together? :)
• Some simple handstitching to occupy my hands while I watch Jeff Probst on Survivor. Ha!
• Please visit Lily Bee Blog to see two other designers use Handmade! :) I'll be back real soon for a blog hop! Watch this space! :)

xoxo